(25 Apr 2025)
RESTRICTION SUMMARY:
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Vatican City – 25 April 2025
1. Various of people queueing to enter Saint Peter’s Basilica
2. Woman praying with rosary while queueing
3. SOUNDBITE (Italian) Cristina Fazzi, pilgrim from Italy:
“Yes it’s 5:30, we’ve been here since 4:15 or 4:30. I’m here because I was here when he got elected as pope. It seemed right and proper to me to greet him. I welcomed him and I want to say goodbye to him."
5. Various of people queuing
6. SOUNDBITE (English) Father Przemek Tomczyk, priest from Poland and Archdiocese of Chicago:
“I think it’s so important to be here to pray for the repose and soul of Pope Francis because he has been such an influential pope and the one who also taught me as a priest how to be a shepherd to people of God.”
7. People entering St. Peter’s square
8. Close of people’s feet as they enter the square
9. Man wearing Argentina football team jersey queuing
10. SOUNDBITE (Spanish) Augustin Angelicola, pilgrim from Argentina:
“The pope played a very important role because he was an excellent, humble person who changed many laws and always for the better. Now it is a sad thing for the whole world that all this has happened. We didn’t expect it, it had to happen but not so soon.”
11. Various of people queuing
12. SOUNDBITE (Italian) Anastasia (no surname given), Filipino nun:
“We are here to thank Pope Francis for all that he has done for the Church and for each one of us because I believe that he has left us something to go forward in our faith.”
13. Wide of crowd
14. Nuns queueing
15. SOUNDBITE (Italian) Edoardo (no surname given), Italian pilgrim:
“If 200,000 or 300,000 people come, it will mean that they have understood that he was a good pope who prayed for good because wars are not needed, peace is needed and peace is difficult to find while war is very easy.”
16. Various of people queueing
STORYLINE:
Tens of thousands of people are queuing up to enter St Peter’s Basilica to pay their respects to Pope Francis a day before his funeral.
The Vatican said more than 90,000 people had paid their respects by Thursday evening, a day and a half after opening.
The basilica was bathed in a hushed silence as mourners from across the globe made a slow, shuffling procession up the main aisle to pay their last respects to Francis, who died Monday at age 88 after a stroke.
Heads of state and royalty will start converging on Rome on Friday for the funeral of Pope Francis in the Vatican’s St. Peter’s Square, but the group of poor people who will meet his casket in a small crosstown basilica are more in keeping with Francis’ humble persona and disdain for pomp.
U.S. President Donald Trump and Argentine President Javier Milei are among the leaders arriving Friday, the last day the Argentine pope will lie in state in St. Peter’s Basilica before his coffin is sealed in the evening in preparation for his funeral Saturday.
The Vatican said 130 delegations are confirmed, including 50 heads of state and 10 reigning sovereigns.
AP video by Isaia Montelione, Florent Bajrami
Produced by Francesco Sportelli, Isaia Montelione, Joel Paqui
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